by Hazel Jacobs
“I suppose you want me to help you with that?” she asks, raising an eyebrow at him.
She’s rewarded with a cheeky smile. “Well, it is your fault,” Logan says. He gives her a warm smile. “I’ll return the favor, don’t worry.”
“Oh, I’m not worried about that,” she replies.
She runs her fingers over the shaft, feeling the velvety skin give just a little bit under her light touch. She’s deliberately gentle, knowing how much he likes to feel the moment, knowing as she does how aggressive he can be when he’s in the mood. She thinks that being gentle might drive him crazy. She wants to see him driven crazy. She thinks that might be something to see.
He purses his lips at the contact, seeming to be trying to avoid giving a reaction. He must have seen through her intentions. She dips her head without warning and takes half of him in her mouth at once.
The effect is instantaneous. Logan yelps and there’s a sound of sheets rumbling as he fists his hands in them. She sucks hard, and his hips shudder as though he wants to buck up into her mouth, but he’s restraining himself. She appreciates that. She gives another hard suck that makes him groan, and then she returns to the gentle touches with her fingers, pulling back so that she can look him in the eye.
“You’re evil,” he mutters. His voice is light and breathless. “Just remember it’s my turn next and you’re way easier to hold on the edge.”
Mikayla grins at him. “And what makes you think I won’t enjoy that?”
“Evil.”
She alternates between her hands and her mouth until his penis is straining and he’s reduced to an incoherent, muttering mess against the headboard. He’s got his fingers in her hair, something else she’s noticed that he’s fond of, but he doesn’t pull or direct her. He seems to just want to remind himself that she’s there. Mikayla enjoys the way his hips twitch, the involuntary noises he makes, the way his fingers clench on her scalp when she goes to take him in her mouth. She usually doesn’t get off on giving head, but she can feel herself getting wet listening to how much he’s enjoying himself.
“Mi-Mikayla, I’m going to—”
But before he can finish his sentence, there’s a knock at the door.
Mikayla shoots up off of his penis, staring at the door as Logan quickly reaches for the blankets to cover himself up. They have a brief, silent argument about what to do—whether to ignore the knocker or answer the door.
“Who is it?” she calls out finally.
“It’s Dash,” comes the reply.
“Shit,” Logan mutters. His chest is still flushed and his pupils are wide, but he pushes himself out of the bed and retreats to the bathroom.
Once the door is closed, and she has covered herself in the thick, fluffy robe, she answers the door.
“Hey! Woah, sorry, did I wake you up?” Dash asks, taking in her wild hair and robe, which she holds closed at the neck. She can’t take any chances.
“A little,” she replies. “What’s up?”
“You know breakfast is nearly over, right?” he questions. “We’re supposed to be at an interview in an hour, I think.”
Mikayla’s heart sinks. She’d completely forgotten about it. “You’re right, Dash. Thanks for reminding me. Sorry, I’m just a bit all over the place this morning.”
“Hey, that’s cool, don’t worry about it,” he replies. “By the way, have you seen Logan? I might have kicked him out last night. I want to make sure he didn’t end up sleeping in a ditch or something.”
“No, he didn’t… he’s… I booked him his own room,” she says. “I don’t remember what number, though. Sorry. You could try texting him?”
“Okay, thanks, Mik,” he says. He disappears off down the hallway. The back of his shirt is a bullseye, something that Mikayla doesn’t entirely approve of given his history.
She waits until he’s out of sight before closing the door with a sigh.
“Coast is clear,” she says.
Logan peeks his head out of the bathroom. His hair is a mess, and there’s still some red on his cheeks. “Better make sure I’m ‘checked out’ before I see him next,” he says.
“Listen, I’m really sorry about forgetting that interview,” Mikayla says quickly. “Seriously, I don’t know what got into me.”
“I know what got into you,” Logan says slyly, stepping out of the bathroom to reveal the fact that he’s still hard.
She rolls her eyes at the cheesy line. “Yeah, but I mean… it won’t happen again.”
“It’s an honest mistake, Mikayla,” he says, crossing the room and pulling her into his arms. He presses a kiss to her lips. After a moment, she returns it. “Why are you so worried about this?”
She wants to say that she knows her predecessor was fired for a minor misdemeanor, and that she doesn’t want to incur his wrath by doing something similar. But she doesn’t, because Logan seems to be in a good mood and she doesn’t want to ruin it by bringing up the last woman who worked with him. Instead, she just waves her hand as though she’s forgotten and kisses him again.
It occurs to her that perhaps the reason that she isn’t being fired for a minor infraction might be because she’s sleeping with Logan. That somehow the night they’d shared had saved her job. That makes her feel a little… cheap. And even guiltier knowing that Danielle maybe could have saved her job if she’d been with a different band member.
It’s hard to imagine that Logan is capable of such callousness. Not when he’s holding her so tenderly, peppering soft kisses against her lips. His persistent erection rests between them, but he makes no move to guide her hands toward it the way another man would have. He seems to be enjoying kissing her. It isn’t until the soft beeping of his phone from the bed reminds them that they have places to go that Logan pulls out of the kiss.
“I should deal with this,” he says, gesturing vaguely to his crotch. “And then deal with that.” He points to his phone.
He makes to go back to the bathroom, but she stops him. She pushes him onto the bed. He allows it. When he’s seated, she gets down on her knees between his legs, taking him in her mouth and sucking hard, using both of her hands on the base to bring him over quickly.
She doesn’t want to feel like a prostitute, buying financial security with her body. But it’s hard not to feel like one when she considers how he could have reacted if he weren’t in such a good mood when he’d gotten the news that she’d made a scheduling error. She tells herself that Logan wouldn’t do that to her regardless of whether or not they were sleeping together. She’d made friends with the entire band. She’d stood between Dash and a knife. Tommy said that she belonged with them.
Would Logan fire her if they broke up? Was he that kind of callous?
It is difficult to tell. Considering how hot and cold he’d been in the beginning. How quickly his temper could turn when he was annoyed, and how petty some of their arguments were in the beginning. Perhaps the fact that they are sleeping together now doesn’t help Mikayla’s job security one bit.
Logan runs his fingers through her hair, so gently that she almost doesn’t realize that he’s doing it, murmuring words that she doesn’t quite catch until she starts listening for them.
“…So beautiful. I’m so lucky. I’m so glad you’re here. Mikayla… Mikayla…” He repeats her name like a prayer.
She works him until he’s warning her to pull away, and then she finishes him with her hands. When he’s stopped gasping and groaning through his orgasm, he moves down on his knees so that they’re chest to chest, running his fingers down her belly and pressing them in all the spots he knows she likes. She kisses him, allowing herself to feel good in this moment, even as the conflicting thoughts about what this could mean for her job, and for the band, swirl around in her head.
One thing is certain—things just got a lot more complicated.
Black Lilith’s gig at the XOYO draws a crowd of hundreds. Men and women dressed in the band’s T-shirts scream from the seats as Logan weaves
magic with his voice and Tommy’s words. Mikayla watches from the wings, enjoying the music in between making sure that the lighting and stage manager has all of his prompts, and the roadies don’t overdo it with the beer in the green room. Jack and Finn maintain their silent vigil beside her.
At intermission, the band and a handful of chosen women, pour themselves into the green room.
“We should open the next set with Termites in the Toothpaste,” Tommy says, taking a couple of beers out of the dingy fridge in the corner and handing them around.
The green room is larger than usual but older than anything they’d played in back home. There’s a lingering scent of marijuana and beer which seems to be decades, possibly centuries, old. The couch that Dash and Slate are sitting on looks like it once had a floral design which has since faded with age. Logan leans against a wall which is decorated with lipstick marks, autographs, and finger stains.
“Yeah, it is that type of crowd,” he replies. He rubs his thumb over the tattoos on his wrist. Mikayla finds herself watching the progression of his thumb with some interest. “Slate… Slate, goddammit, pay attention.”
Slate, who was focused almost exclusively on the girl with the short skirt who has squeezed herself onto the couch beside him, looks up.
“What? Termites in the Toothpaste, I got it.”
They discuss the set some more. Mikayla tunes out, nervously pulling on the edge of her blouse to make sure that the marks are covered. It’s been three days since their first night together, and the hickeys Logan left on her skin are still as bright and vibrant as ever. She likes to admire them in the mirror every morning before covering them up.
Admiring them is all she has. Logan hasn’t been in a position to give her any new ones. Since that first night, Dash hasn’t brought any more girls back to the hotel, and Logan could never come up with an excuse to spend the night in Mikayla’s room. This is worse, she decides than when she was pining for him before. Now she knows exactly what she’s missing, and the thought that she can’t have it because they have to keep their relationship a secret is slowly driving her crazy. The only comfort she has is the longing looks Logan sends her when he knows that nobody else is watching. He’s just as affected by their separation as she is.
“Tomorrow’s our last show in London,” Tommy says, pulling Mikayla out of her reverie. “So we can afford to experiment a little with the set list tonight.”
“Experimenting is one thing,” Slate says irritably. “But we haven’t even rehearsed this song!”
“We don’t need to. It uses the same progression as Pick Me Up at the Corner,” Tommy replies. “I’ve written out sheets for Logan. The melody is the only thing that’s different.”
Logan’s frowning at a page full of sheet music, his eyes flickering over the notes as he takes each one in. She had been surprised to hear during one of their interviews that Logan can sing a song after reading the music on the paper—he doesn’t even need to hear it once. As long as the sheet music is accurate, he’ll be able to sing it. That seemed to her to be the sort of skill only taught to classical musicians.
“Yeah, I can sing this,” Logan replies. “Nice lyrics, by the way.”
Tommy ducks his head to cover up his blush, ignoring the punch in the arm that Dash graces him with.
“Let’s give it a try,” Dash says.
Slate, who seems to be the only dissenter at this point, sighs and shakes his head. “Y'all are going to send me to an early grave, I swear.”
The four men head for the stage, leaving the women behind with the beers. The girl who had been sitting with Slate pulls out a baggie filled with white powder and starts cutting lines. So Mikayla leaves the room, following the band out to the stage and waiting as Logan introduces the new song.
When the show is over, the band and their new friends pile into the bus. Dash has two women on his arms, which Mikayla notices with some interest. Maybe Logan will be out of a room tonight. Logan seems to notice it as well because he brushes his fingers lightly along Mikayla’s arm as he passes her on the bus—a promise she recognizes with nothing more than a glance.
At the hotel, she books a new room for Tommy, who has a redhead on his arm babbling about philosophy in a way that makes his eyes light up as he escorts her to the hotel elevator. One of Dash’s new friends, Alisha, seems to have indulged just a little too much in the green room going by how giggly and off-balance she is. Mikayla pulls Dash aside.
“Maybe you should send her home?” she asks.
“I was just thinking that,” Dash replies. “She was into it earlier, at least.”
“Yeah, but still—”
“Believe me, I know,” Dash says. He looks over at the girl regretfully. Her friend, Kristy, seems sober enough, or at least more sober than Alisha. “Maybe her friend can take her home?”
She nods, though she knows she’s just shot down her own night with Logan in flames. “That’s a good idea. I’ll arrange a cab.”
When she walks back to the concierge, she mutters to Logan as she walks past, “I think we’re cursed.”
So Mikayla sends the two girls home disappointed, but high enough to get over it quickly. Dash is still in a pretty good mood as he heads toward the elevator with his brother, grinning and throwing an arm around Logan’s shoulders as he goes. She watches the brothers long enough to catch Logan glancing back at her with regret in his gaze. Mikayla is glad that she sent the girls home, even if it costs her the chance to spend the night with Logan again.
“Looks like I’m flying solo again,” she mutters, running a hand through her hair as she heads for the stairs, unwilling to be trapped in an elevator with Logan’s woody cologne and being unable to do anything about it.
As she arrives at her floor, her phone goes off in her pocket. She glances at the screen and groans. It’s her mother.
“Hey, Mama,” she says, pressing the phone to her ear and letting herself into her room. She tosses her purse onto one of the royal blue chairs under the window and deftly undoes her bra.
“Good evening,” Mikayla’s mother replies. She’s slurring her words a bit, and Mikayla stifles a groan. She’s been drinking again. “How is your ‘tour’?” she asks.
“It’s going well,” Mikayla replies. She pulls her bra out of her sleeve and tosses it onto the chair. “Thanks for asking.”
“I’m thinking about divorcing Theodore,” her mother says. Mikayla hears the sound of her sipping her drink.
“Are you?” Mikayla asks.
Of all of her mother’s husbands, Theodore is Mikayla’s least favorite. He’s emotional and likes drama, and she thinks her mother needs stability now that she’s heading toward retirement age. Her relationship with Theodore is one of constant stress, and she’s often on the phone with Mikayla telling her about how she’s planning to leave him. She never does. Mikayla wishes she would, but it’s not Mikayla’s place to point that out to her.
“I meannn it,” her mother says. Her voice trails off on the word mean, the alcohol making her tongue looser. “I’m done. He’s too young for me.”
“He’s seventy.”
“He’s too immature,” she amends. She takes another sip of whatever it is she’s drinking. “Will you come over?”
“Mama, I’m in London.” Not that it means anything. Mikayla would have been expected to fly over to Vermont if she were stateside.
“They don’t have planes in London?”
“Mama… you know I’m on tour right now,” she answers.
“What? Your band can’t get a different babysitter for the weekend?”
Mikayla takes a deep breath through her nose and out through her mouth. “Mama, if you call me tomorrow, and you’re still planning to leave him then I’ll figure something out. But right now… just, maybe have a cup of coffee or something? Get your mind straight?”
“Ugh, you’re worse than your father.”
“That’s a compliment, Mama,” she says. She pulls her shoes off and sits on the
bed, running a hand through her hair and flattening it down as she listens to the distinctive clink of glass on wood which signals that her mother has finished her drink.
“It’s not a compliment. Your father was a terrible husband.”
“You know all about terrible husbands.”
“At least I have one,” her mother replies. There’s acid in her voice. “Where are you going to meet a man traveling around with that band of yours?”
Mikayla considers telling her that she’s met a man, but then her mother will ask her about him. And then she’ll belittle the fact that Mikayla is dating a band member.
“It’s your father’s own fault that he died.”
“Mama!”
“Well, it is,” her mother says, speaking over Mikayla’s sputtering. “He worked himself to death. Didn’t matter what else was happening… his parents dying, his wife going into labor, he missed them both because he thought work was more important. It’s a wonder that I stayed with him as long as I did.”
Liquid falling into a glass. She’s pouring another drink.
“Mama, I think you’ve had enough,” she says. She never knew that her father had missed her mother’s labor, but her mother hardly talks about her first husband.
“I’m a grown woman, I’ll decide when I’ve had enough.”
There’s an echo in her voice now—she’s put Mikayla on speaker. There’s a scrape as she pulls a chair out and a whump as she sits down. Mikayla wonders why she hasn’t hung up yet. Her mother is clearly in an awful mood, and she’s started sharing the sorts of memories which can bring Mikayla down to the pits of anger and sadness in minutes.
“Do you think all that work is going to make you happy?” her mother asks, still slurring. “You know what it’s going to make you? Dead at forty. You know, now that I think about it, I’m glad you haven’t met a man. Better for you to die alone so that no one misses you.”
